The House of Commons has recessed for the summer and the next federal election has already started.

No, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not dropped the writs for the 2015 election yet. Officially, the next federal election is scheduled for Oct. 19, 2015.

But this doesn’t mean the parties are not getting into campaign mode; they are. The House of Commons is the scene of a perpetual election campaign.

The government is always professing the virtues of its policies while dumping scorn on the opposition's stupidity. Likewise, the opposition parties constantly attack the wrong-headedness of the governing party and the prime minister while extolling their own leadership's superior sensibility.

The parties are not trying to convince one another of their viewpoints. All MPs know that the fundamentals of each party’s policies are set and that no majority government will listen to the opposition's proposals. Rather than debating each other with the intent of changing minds and positions, MPs debate to score points, make news and attract favourable media coverage.

With the summer recess, the House of Commons becomes quiet. MPs head back to their ridings to “work the hustings” and to interact with the “commoners” who elect them. And there will be a lot to discuss.

The past session of Parliament was noteworthy for highlighting a wide variety of issues which will likely become the fodder of the next election campaign.

The so-called Fair Elections Act has just been passed, making sweeping changes to how elections are administered in this country, and notably stripping Elections Canada of its independent authority to promote voter turnout and to investigate electoral fraud allegations.

The Harper government has closed nine Veterans Affairs offices across the country, including the one in Sydney, stressing that services to veterans can be more efficiently streamlined through online procedures. Meanwhile, the government continues to spend money on military commemorations while veterans argue much of that money should go to veterans’ care.

New federal cyberbullying legislation remains mired in controversy as the government seeks to augment the powers of police and security services with the ability to access subscriber information and usage history from Internet service providers without a search warrant. The Supreme Court of Canada has just ruled in a unanimous judgment that governmental access to such private information can only be allowed pursuant to a court order.

And respecting the courts, the government is still smarting after the fiasco of Harper seeking to appoint Federal Court Judge Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled the appointment unconstitutional, forcing the prime minister to appoint another judge.

As the parliamentary session came to an end, the government introduced new anti-prostitution legislation in response to the Supreme Court having struck down the old prostitution laws as violating sex workers’ security of the person. The new legislation affirms that selling sex is legal but buying it is illegal. This law continues to make it illegal for prostitutes to advertise their services, once again driving sex work underground. Critics of this legislation have already announced their plans to challenge its constitutionality before the courts.

And finally, the Harper government just last week announced its conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline, which is designed to carry raw bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat, B.C., and thence onto supertankers for export to Asia. While this project's proponent, Enbridge Energy, still needs to satisfy 209 conditions set down by the National Energy Board, the debate on the merits and demerits of this pipeline is already white hot.

The Harper government has long argued in favour of pipelines to get landlocked Alberta crude to foreign markets. Both the federal NDP and Liberals stand opposed to the Northern Gateway project, stressing that it is environmentally and economically unsound. Expect to hear much more about this in the months to come.

And don’t be surprised if all of these issues become the basis of increasingly intense political debate over the next year. Come next spring, the government will deliver Budget 2015, trumpeting the news that the budget is once again balanced. This budget will then announce new spending programs, ranging from income-splitting to F-35s.

If polling suggests the budget is popular, look to see Harper call an early spring vote. And be prepared for one of the dirtiest campaigns in Canadian history.

David Johnson, PhD, is a political science professor at Cape Breton University. He can be reached at david_johnson@cbu.ca.

Too anti abortion......You are against abortion and I respect that given that I am as well but, to vote for hitler (oops I meant harper) is bizarre!! harper and his tory cronies don't just ruin one life, they ruin THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of lives right across this country. If you are against abortion protest it, but not by voting for a modern day hitler type of beast!! Please vote "ABC" next federal election.

Joseph Sampson

June 25, 2014 - 20:51

Anybody with an ounce of sense will vote "ABC" (anything but conservatives) next election!! This country has been ripped apart and abused by the tories long enough!!!